Remember the Duggers? They were that Christian Fundamentalist family of 19—yes, 19—that became an early-aughts pop culture phenomena, turned reality-TV model for the conservative set. "19 Kids & Counting" which launched in 2008, spawned dozens more reality shows featuring quiverfull families, further normalizing the big religious family dynamics where kids more or less, parent themselves.
Long story short, a police report filed in 2006, BEFORE the show was made, emerged in 2015, resulting in one of the older brothers' Josh Duggar’s arrest for sexual abuse (among other rancid, awful charges). As Josh sits incarcerated in a federal prison for the next decade, a new special docuseries on the phenomenon and abuse, airs in June.
The audience for the upcoming doc may be the same as the "19 Kids & Counting" demographic, but it includes a transformed and questioning set: children of Christian families and other New Age Religions (aka cults) who grew up watching the show or who grew up in a similar dynamic are beginning to reckon not only with their childhoods but with the Christian religion that permeated their home lives as well as contemporary pop culture.
A strong thread of Puritanism in American culture is nothing new but this type of deconstruction is not only a crucial tool for those thousands of us living with Religious Trauma Syndrome, but as a departure point in narrative for not just the Duggars but any famous evangelical who wants to rebrand in a less religious market. Deconstruction, like the word of God, is a double edged sword (sorry, bad Hebrews 4:12 joke). But seriously, we're about to see a huge wave of backlash against Boomer-style fundamentalism with many perpetrators rebranding with deconstruction as a boon to one's faith and the market of soul-winning, rather than a way to heal from religious trauma. I mean, it can be both and we’re about to see both. Buckle up, churches are about to go harder than ever. Have you seen the influx of Scientology ads? That’s another newsletter for another week. ;)
The post-religious content has already begun. The Hulu docuseries, The Secrets of Hillsong is another recent example. These community ruptures are not situational outliers—these warped, abusive dynamics driving the vehicle of Christianity—they are not freak occurrences, this is a systemic issue.
Note: For our purposes since my expertise is in Christian childhoods, the definition of Deconstruction I’ll focus on is mostly Christian or Jesus-adjacent communities.
Deconstruction is a Christian phenomenon where people unpack, rethink and examine their belief systems. This may lead to dropping one's faith altogether or may result in a stronger faith. In many ways I've been deconstructing the Christian faith since I first learned about Christ, maybe in kindergarten when I heard about heaven and found the concept unmotivating. Sin is more fun, we know this. God’s early 90s branding was bad and ineffective ok?
Who’s talking about it? Well, besides apologist Christian media, who has released a handful of church blog posts, the Fundie Snark community emerged a few years as a way to break down fundamentalism and in many respects, to mock rich blonde Christians with YouTube channels and regressive, heteronormative ideas. What’s not to love?
Recently, two Dugger sisters have come forward about their childhood under the sexist, racist, and overall damaging cult teachings of Bill Gothard and the Institute of Basic Life Principles (IBLP), of which the Duggar parents subscribed. Jill and Jinger Duggar (all 19 kids have names that start with J. I have a set of cousins who also only have J names, too), have come forward each in their own ways. Jinger released a book a few months ago and refuses the phrase "deconstruction" and instead uses the phrase "detangling" or “disentangling” to describe her reassessment of her faith. Jill is the daughter and force behind the upcoming exposé. Neither have renounced Christianity entirely but this is how it happens in both deconstruction and what evangelists would call “going astray”: in increments, as ideas unfold and connect, over time as realizations and learned facts weigh heavier against indoctrinated ideas stored up in the mind and psyche. It does not happen in a flash or overnight, but slowly, like fruit rotting on a kitchen table.
One of my favorite quotes from my godwoods days (TLDR; when I lived in the woods to study the Bible. Read more about my faith here or here) is a variation of this sentiment from author John Meacham: "An unexamined faith is not worth having, for fundamentalism and uncritical certitude entail the rejection of one of the great human gifts: that of free will, of the liberty to make up our own minds based on evidence and tradition and reason.a faith something rigorous analysis is not a faith worth having.” This alone, to me, justified a break, having pushed Christian faith as far as possible for myself. I had rigorously analyzed my Christian faith and I found it lacking. So I left.
My own deconstruction was more like a dissociation than thoughtful reflection. I closed my eyes and drowned myself in alcohol and performed extroversion the best way I knew how, God was a memory. I just stopped taking people’s phone calls one day. Christianity is a religion whose foot soldiers are apologists—I knew every argument and every point of my own vulnerability—my gullibility and my determination to be kind, what my mother called my butter-soft heart. When a sheep goes astray, the entire flock has to wait while the shepherd looks. Even in my absence I felt like a nuisance.
Lifelong indoctrination is on a par with C/PTSD and it makes sense that Jinger Dugger, (who looks like one of my aunts so much it alarms me), describes it as "disentangling." It seems to me a gentler, slow process. Delicate. Jinger Duggar has been wounded deeply by her faith and her family all while on TV as a child. In her and in other people coming forward through a variety of platforms, I recognize so deeply each character being evaluated by the Fundie Snark community and in many ways, I see my younger self. I missed the YT content train by just a few years, there is thankfully there is no evidence of me being Christian online. (Just moody LiveJournals I’ve since destroyed).
Through Fundie Fridays and the Snark audience, I was able to acknowledge two very crucial versions of myself: the Christian I was trying to be for the first half of my life, and the person I actually grew into. Here, just a click away, were kind people who categorized what was fucked up about certain behaviors tolerated by the Christian community that I and other kids I loved were subjected to, and what was just harmless nonsense. Going to church now is whenever I log on— I can deconstruct painlessly after all these years of severance—I can molt like a snake and move on.
Personally, it’s a relief to see American Christianity questioned at this level, on big platforms; I feel less gaslit by my own existence with or without my brain’s attachment to capital-G God. I’ve seen more people wounded than healed within the Christian community, and as someone who genuinely believed and studied the actual teachings of Christ—I find this cultural reckoning and visibility crucial. ☼
Recommendations:
I was on a podcast talking about my past as a teenage Jesus Freak. Thank you to Kyle of I Need God for hosting me!